Walworth is the new Waukesha

Walworth County has surpassed Waukesha County as southeastern Wisconsin’s wealthiest county in terms of per-capita property value. According to the Milwaukee-based Public Policy Forum’s latest property value report, Walworth County’s 2006 per-capita property value is $132,391, compared to $130,348 for Waukesha County. Its per-capita property value increased 12.8% from 2005-2006, the highest among the seven counties that comprise southeastern Wisconsin.

“Walworth is an emerging story in our region and needs to be respected as one of its key players,” says Forum President Jeff Browne.

Waukesha County per-capita property value increased 8.2%; Milwaukee County’s increased 12.5%, second to Walworth County.

During the same period, the city of Milwaukee’s overall tax base grew 15.1% in 2006, the largest increase for the city since 1992. “Starting in 2003, when the city of Milwaukee’s one-year increases began to accelerate, the region’s increases surpassed the state and for the second consecutive year, the city’s increase was greater than both the region and the state,” says Browne. “You can make the case that when the city does well, the rest of region follows suit and does well also. The city essentially fuels the region.”

Walworth County had the largest overall tax-base growth, 14.2%, in the region from 2005 to 2006. It also had the highest growth among the seven counties in residential and manufacturing tax bases. Waukesha County, on the other hand, grew much slower last year. Its overall tax base increased only 8.9%, sixth among the region’s seven counties. “Apparently a certain level of wealth is reached and things tend to slow down a bit, particularly in a region that is only holding its own economically,” says Browne. “Ozaukee County another relatively wealthy county in the region had the slowest tax-base growth in southeastern Wisconsin, at 7.3%.”

Milwaukee County’s total tax base – which grew 12.2% in 2006, second to Walworth – far surpassed other counties in the region in value. Its overall tax base was $63.6 billion; Waukesha County was next highest at $49.5 billion, followed by Racine at $14.8 billion.

The tax base for all of southeastern Wisconsin grew 10.7% from 2005 to 2006, to $178.3 billion. The state grew 9.6%.

The Forum report looked at three primary categories of property value: residential, commercial, and manufacturing. Those categories comprise the greatest portion of the tax base. Residential and commercial property made up 94% of the region’s total tax base. Manufacturing accounted for 2.5% of the tax base.

Related material:
Table 1: 2006 equalized property values
Table 2: 2006 per-capita property values

Public or private, school is boring

A new study in Science finds that schoolchildren in the US have only a 1-in-14 chance of experiencing a rich, supportive elementary classroom.

Researchers went to 2,500 1st-, 3rd-, and 5th-grade classrooms, tracking cohorts of students as they progressed through the school, to observe teachers and the typical day experienced by students.

Some of the findings:

• Fifth-graders spent 91.2% of class time in their seats listening to a teacher or working alone, and only 7% working in small groups, which fosters social skills and critical thinking. Findings were similar in 1st and 3rd
  grades.

• In 5th grade, 62% of instructional time was in literacy or math; only 24% was devoted to social studies or science.

• About one in seven (14%) kids had a consistently high-quality "instructional climate" all three years studied. Most classrooms had a fairly healthy "emotional climate," but only 7% of students consistently had classrooms high in both.
  

My first thought was whether the researchers visited both public and private schools. The USA Today article about the study (Science is available online only to subscribers) mentions that there were no differences between public and private schools. Could that be true? There is not any measure on which the classroom experiences in public schools differ significantly from those in private schools? This finding will certainly shock proponents of market-based education reform (i.e. private school vouchers). But it doesn't shock me. I've visited public and private schools in Milwaukee for eight years as a researcher at the Forum and found that the variety of quality in both public and private schools is extraordinary. So, I'm not surprised that when all that variety is averaged out, there aren't big differences between the public and private schools.

Interestingly, this finding is bound to be equally irksome for public school advocates like the teachers' unions. Not only are their members not doing enough to stimulate their students' brains, they can't even blame it on the pressure of working under the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) requirements. If NCLB were really to blame for this lack of richness in the classroom, you would expect to find some differences when observing in private schools, which are not subject to NCLB.

So, from my read, the findings mean that you aren't guaranteed an engaging and supportive teacher just because you're in a private school, and federal testing requirements aren't the root cause of lackluster creativity in the classroom. Teaching is hard to do well, period. If you're a parent, the lesson you should take from this is to visit your own children's classrooms frequently. If your kids aren't getting the higher-order problem solving skills, or the support, or the enrichment they need, you'll know it.

PPF in the morning

The reaction to Don Imus referring to female basketball players as “nappy-headed hos” highlights an important finding from the Forum’s 2006 survey on race relations: Whatever our race, we are typically not exposed to offensive racial terms. In the survey, we asked 400 whites, 400 blacks and 200 Hispanics: “In the past year, …has someone called you an offensive term?” Responding “yes” were 11% of whites, 23% of blacks, and 32% of Hispanics.

Interestingly, the survey found that people of color are more likely to feel ignored than insulted. Half of African Americans and 38% of Hispanics report having been ignored because of their race, presumably by a store clerk, a loan officer or perhaps a teacher. While overt racial jokes and slurs draw attention, saying nothing whatsoever can be offensive too.

Structural quicksand

On March 20, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett testified before the State Joint Finance Committee about the "Milwaukee Initiative," the money appropriated for Milwaukee in Governor Doyle’s proposed 2007-09 budget.

The verdict? He wants more money.

While that’s not a shocking statement from the mayor, the looming budget gap he noted is a little surprising. Even with $4 million in additional state shared revenue and a 3% property tax increase, the city is facing a $12.5 million funding gap for 2008 when increases for only a few programs are taken into account (most notably, an additional 100 Milwaukee police officers over the next two years).

Of course, the mayor has time to find other revenue and make cuts to balance this gap before he proposes his own budget in September. His statement makes it clear, however, that the city is still facing a significant structural deficit (the gap between ongoing revenues and the cost to continue).

Housing price roller coaster--really!

Someone has turned the graph of inflation-adjusted US housing prices since 1890 into a roller coaster ride.

Let's just say that this isn't a ride you'd want to stand in line for.

Hat tip: 13th Floor

PPF Presents

On April 25th, Forum president Jeff Browne will present the results of our race relations survey at a breakfast event sponsored by The Business Journal, the Valuing Diversity Task Force of Sussex/Lisbon, the Sussex Area Chamber of Commerce, the Menomonee Falls Chamber of Commerce, and the Hamilton School District.

After Jeff’s presentation there will be a business panel discussion on “Diversity and Doing Business in Waukesha County.” The panel includes: Keith Everson, President, Rexam Sussex; Gloria Keshemberg, Manager of Employment and Employee Relations, Community Memorial Hospital, Menomonee Falls; Pat Pearman, Global Manager of Diversity, GE Healthcare; Rob Quadracci, Director of Employee Services, Quad/Graphics, Inc.; Mark Sabljak, Publisher, The Business Journal of Milwaukee; Daniel Trawicki, Waukesha County Sheriff; and Daniel Vrakas, Waukesha County Executive.

For more information and to register, call the Hamilton School District at 262-246-1973 ext. 1100.

Click here for more details on the April 25th diversity presentation.

Also, next week Forum senior researcher Ryan Horton will present findings from our recent analysis of City of Milwaukee economic development efforts. The presentation and following discussion will be held on April 10th at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee School of Architecture and Urban Planning (SARUP) building in Room 345 from Noon - 1:30 pm.

The lecture is part of SARUP's Smart Growth Lecture Series. The Spring 2007 theme for the lecture series is Hidden Assets: Building Community Wealth.

Click here for more details on the April 10th economic development presentation.

Big in Japan

According to a recent The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article, there are 92 skyscrapers under construction in Tokyo, Japan. Even at this pace of construction, it is reported that the supply of office space in Tokyo will not keep up with demand due to years of robust expansion in Japan's service sector.

With Milwaukee's downtown office vacancy rate hovering around a dismal 15%, it might be time to look to Japan for a quick lesson in downtown development.

The catalyst in Tokyo's office building boom, according to the WSJ article, is Japan's shift from a manufacturing economy to a high-end service economy built on marketing and finance jobs.

Milwaukee is going through a similar economic restructuring. But a recent report by The Brookings Institution highlights Milwaukee's inability to adequately replace lost manufacturing jobs with high-value service sector jobs. In other words, don't get caught up in the hype that blames Milwaukee's economic woes on manufacturing job losses. Instead, blame our economic malaise on the region's sluggish employment growth in its service economy (see below chart by Brookings).

The story is simple: Everyone is losing manufacturing jobs (yes, even China). Some regions are transitioning. Some are not.

Sure, we could subsidize developers in hopes of spurring new downtown construction. But, if the Tokyo boom teaches us anything, finding ways to bolster a high-end services economy may be a more efficient strategy in building a postcard-worthy skyline for Milwaukee's downtown.